Chapter XXV (1)

Storms of Great Violence Around Galveston—Wrecked Cities and Vast
Destruction of Property—Appalling Sacrifice of Life.

A close observer and correspondent who is familiar with every part of Texas and is capable of sizing up the situation, writes as follows concerning the disaster which has left Galveston a scene of death and ruin:

“At first glance it would seem that the population of Galveston had been endowed by a thoughtlessness which invites the calamities it has suffered. Three times in twenty-five years storms of great violence have swept over the island on which it occupies a position exposed to every energy of the elements, and on the two occasions whose history is complete the survivors rebuilt their city, as they probably will do again, and the storm broke upon it, as most likely it will once more, with death and destruction in its blast.

“Apart from the deep sympathy which one feels for the people the situation may awaken a philosophic inquiry whose consideration is of less importance than the interest the subject awakens and which is reinforced by parallel cases in the history of disaster since the world began, and I propose to show in a few great cases how the citizens of Galveston are only repeating history when, even as they gather their dead, they plan a new city whose foundation shall be enduring and which shall stand defiant and permanent, a triumph of man over antagonistic nature and a civic crown of glory to their efforts. It is no ignoble purpose.

THE DYKES OF HOLLAND.

“The sturdy Dutchmen who threw their dykes across the sea, the Sicilians who terraced Aetna’s lava sides with vineyards, the people of San Francisco who rebuilt their city when it was cast down by earthquakes until at last they found a structural design that would resist the seismic influence that hold the Pacific coast in tremulous expectation; Chicago that has risen twice from ashes to finer and more secure architectural proportions, and Calcutta, whose existence has been marked by three beginnings, are all expressions of the same splendid pertinacity with which the people of Galveston are already animated and from which will certainly appear a new and grander Gulf city offering to the menaces of nature a richer challenge.

A GREAT BREAKWATER.

“It was no accidental selection that caused Galveston to be built as it was upon a low island whose approach from the sea offered no harbor to ships and to whose low, sandy shores the products of the State of which she is the metropolis came only by artificial and difficult channels. The sweeping curves of the Gulf of Mexico reach its northern apex at or near this point, and it is there that the ships seeking the nearest approach to the cotton fields of Texas came, while the bay itself is as nearly as possible the average centre of industrial life in the State. The bay was never a harbor. To those who are familiar with the Jersey coast the situation of Galveston is easily presented.

“Just as part of the land has reached out into the sea and swinging around in different directions the points came in touch and raised a breakwater which, gathering sand and pebbles, became the beach at distances of four to ten miles from the mainland, leaving interior bays, with shallow inlets connecting them with the ocean, Galveston island was formed.

THE SWIRLING TIDES OF THE GULF.

“If the visitor to Barnegat or even to the Inlet end of the island at Atlantic, will recall how a narrow channel of tidal water reaches back to the sedge fringed bays that extend from Sea Girt to Cape May, and quadruple the width of those interior waters, he will have a fair idea of the position and surroundings of Galveston. Across Galveston Bay the railroads make their approach over eight to fifteen miles of tracks supported by piling.

“The waters of the bay are indeed navigable and through its shallows the moderate tides of the gulf swirl out channels, which the small draft boats of Buffalo Bayou paddle and sail just as the wood and oyster schooners and yachts move up Great Little Egg Harbor Bay on the Jersey coast. In fact, the situation of Galveston is not unlike that of Atlantic City, except that the sandy island on which it is built is lower and its front is to the south instead of to the east.

“Of course there is no well or spring water and the potable supply comes from the house roofs, which are carefully built to gather as much rain as possible, to be stored in cemented cisterns for use. As to the harbor itself for sea-going ships there is, in fact, none. Only the open gulf pushed at this point furthest into the shore, but in a sweep so grand that there are no headlands whatever. The water shoals slowly from the sea and ships of the draft of eighteen feet or more come in to take the first parts of their loads in the shallower water from lighters and move out from time to time until, when down to the load line, they are sometimes six or seven miles from land.

TRYING TO MAKE A HAVEN.

“Great efforts have been made to give Galveston a harbor commensurate with her commercial enterprise, and in some ways success has attended these efforts. Long spurs of breakwater were built out on the principles of the Boca harbor at Buenos Ayres, with a view to enclosing an artificial haven for ships, but the prevalent southerly winds, the currents which they engender and the ceaseless tides have made this work one of great difficulty. A further obstacle has been the shifting, sandy bottom, whose permeable formation reaches down many feet before it rests upon clay or rock.

“The city itself is built chiefly of wood and on the lines of architecture adopted for coolness in tropical climates. That is to say, with vast doorways and windows, cutting out as much of the framework as possible and yet leave enough of support for a roof. This structural form permits the whole house to be opened for the passage of every breeze, but at the cost of stability.

“At intervals and particularly when the spring or high tides prevail, and when the southerly winds bank up the waters of the northern gulf, the streets of the city are flooded, the sewers deliver themselves the wrong way and the uncertain foundations of the city are weakened and prepared for the fall which follows close upon the weather conditions when they are intensified.

THE CITY A PREY TO THE STORM.

“We have now the situation of Galveston fairly before us, and can understand how it easily succumbed to the violence of the late storm. It is true that the cyclone was of a potentiality which might have razed a more firmly built city, but probably in no other city in this country could it have caused such complete devastation.

“In twenty-five years the city of Galveston and the coast line of Texas have had three visitations of tropical hurricanes, bearing death and destruction in their blasts. Every year about the equinoctial season storms of greater or less fury occur and never, on account of the fragile materials and loose methods of building, have they failed of doing damage, but these three occupy thrones of mark above all others. In September, 1875, the coast of Texas, from the mouth of the Rio Grande to the Sabine Pass, was swept by a cyclone that followed with its central zone the curve of the coast, the wind varying at different times in its journey to southeast to southwest.

“The town of Indianola was blotted out of the world in an hour. Not half a dozen of its 1,200 inhabitants escaped, and the sea swept away the island on which it stood, and its site has no other mark than that which the waves rolling over it can offer. There were not enough of people to ask for help. And as there was no longer a place to rebuild, the little remnant moved elsewhere. The storm swept over Galveston, raising a tidal wave that changed in its impetuous flow the whole shape of the island. From the western end nearly two miles of land was cut off and carried around to the north side. The city was unroofed, houses toppled and fell, the water flowed in resistless currents along the levees, floating off to sea thousands of bales of cotton and destroying in its wild swirls the contents of stores and houses and many lives. The number never will be known but estimates place it at 800. For a week telegraphic communication was cut off.

SPILES WRENCHED FROM THEIR PLACES.

“It was my fortune to be in Texas as a correspondent at the time and on the day of the storm at Houston, some sixty miles away, built at the head of Buffalo Bayou, and I was ordered to the wrecked city. At that time there was only one railroad, the Houston and Galveston, and it was utterly destroyed for over thirty miles of its length. The top structure on the spiling across Galveston Bay was, of course, swept away, but it was a remarkable fact as showing the violence of the storm that about one of every three of the great spiles, 50 to 55 feet long and driven down 25 to 30 feet in the sand, was wrenched from its place and swept away.

“Others had resisted, but were twisted and split by the fury of wind and waves. Two small boats, stern wheelers, drawing from 28 to 30 inches of water, built on the Mississippi steamboat model of ancient times, with a cabin over the cargo and engine deck, a Texas or officers’ cabin on top of that, and a glass wheel house on top of that—more fragile things you could not imagine—were moored at the mouth of the bayou, where the sluggish stream enters the bay.

“Strange to say these escaped with the loss of their smokestacks, and were available to send aid, which was not lacking, to the desolate city. It was impossible to transport the quantities of food and clothing that poured in from the North, and more rotted and was lost on the levee at Houston than reached the distressed inhabitants of Galveston.

“That part of the city which was not blown down was imbedded in sand. The Strand, a street in Galveston, whose name is now familiar to the world by reason of the awful scenes that so recently have been witnessed there, was four feet deep in sand, and the Tremont, Cosmopolitan and Great Southern Hotels were filled with sand and hotel was kept on their second floors.

AROSE LIKE A PHOENIX.

“But the city, although cast down, was not discouraged. It began to rebuild itself, and by Christmas of that year almost every trace of the awful calamity had disappeared. The question naturally arises why a population which had received such an awful warning of its exposed condition should not abandon what in a military term would be called an untenable position. The answer is obvious. They had something left there. Even the island, although distorted and out of shape, was still there and theirs, and they had nothing elsewhere, nor means to go to another place.

“So, with hopeful philosophy they rebuilt their city, restored its commerce and, encouraged with such empty precepts as ‘Better luck next time,’ ‘Lightning never strikes twice in the same place,’ went forward to meet their next blow, in 1893, when another hurricane visited them. It was not so terrible in its effect, but differed only in degree. The late severe storm gives further emphatic warning, more terrible and heart-breaking in its losses of life and vaster in its destruction of property. But they will, of course, rebuild their city and seek to establish protective barriers of breakwaters and seawalls to maintain it in existence. In all likelihood they will succeed, for the history of these efforts is of final security after trial and loss, and the firm resolution of man rises over every obstacle.

ASLEEP OVER A VOLCANO.

“Perhaps the persistency of the people who dwell on the slopes at the foot of Mount Vesuvius offers the most striking illustration of disregard of danger against which no human provision can be made. With a volcano boiling on the verge of eruptions that are forever imminent they pasture their flocks and press their grapes, careless of the menace which familiarity has taught them to despise. The whole kingdom of Naples is marked by the same disregard of natural and uncontrollable danger. The statement is accepted by the encyclopedias that in seventy-five years—from 1783 to 1857—the kingdom lost 111,000 inhabitants by the effects of earthquakes. About 1,500 a year in a population of less than 5,000,000.

“The city of Lisbon sits smiling and prosperous on the north bank of the Tagus, and its inhabitants still point with pride to scarred earth dating from the earthquake in which 40,000 lives were lost. Charleston, S. C., is rebuilt. Johnstown, Pa., is restored to its prosperous industry. The Japanese still go their flowery way in Jeddo, where in one great shock 200,000 lives are said to have been lost—which figure is even approximately the greatest disaster the world has ever known. St. Thomas, in the West Indies; Port Royal, Jamaica; Cape Haytien, in Santo Domingo, with a tribute of 45,000 lives within the memory of men yet living, and the spice island of Krakatoa, are still peopled despite the black danger signal of the death which constantly waves over them.

MYRIAD LIVES LOST IN GREAT DISASTERS.

“If you will refer to the statistical sources of information you will find that in one hundred and fifty years, a mere moment in the life of this world and its races, and add up the round thousands only and leave out the hundreds of lives which are charged to lesser lists the sum will reach 1,563,000 souls in the thirty-seven most important earthquake, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and inundations that have visited the earth. It is, of course, impossible to give any sort of guess as to the accuracy of the estimates of the loss of life.

“Even in Johnstown it is not certainly known to this day within 2,000 persons how many were lost. The identified dead numbered 2,228. The best informed and conservative estimates place the figure at 3,500, and others reach 5,000, while published reports, which ought to be authoritative, calmly name the death list at 9,000. It is the same at Galveston, where the number is so variously stated that no reliance can be placed upon any numerical report beyond the fact that anywhere between 1,000 and 3,000 lives have been lost. If this, then, is the waywardness of figures in cases where not only the population is known, but in communities where the associations of commerce and social life has been such that the survivors can count the missing and recognize such of the dead as may be found, how wild must be the estimate placed upon such cataclysms as that in Southeastern Bengal and the Niegen Islands, where on October 31, 1876, in a cyclone, 215,000 people are said to have perished.

CARELESS ABOUT ALL DANGER.

“But even there, where such a loss would imply the sacrifice of one in every four persons inhabiting the territory so awfully stricken, the people still pursue their daily avocations, toil and rest, love, hate, mourn and die with the composure and ease of mind that prevail in Philadelphia or New York, where no shadow of storm is known to hover and where no devastating earthquake or fiery volcano lurks for victims. But, of course, these awful figures have very little relation to the actual losses. In the storm in Bengal Sir Richard Temple, who had charge of the crown relief, did not find that 20,000 lives were lost and that probably not more than 10,000 died of the famine which the loss of the crops insured. In the potato famine in Ireland, in 1846 and 1847, the loss of life was named at 120,000 by those who charged the whole business to English misrule and was named at from 8,000 to 20,000 by the royal commissioners entrusted with the distribution of the £10,000,000 of Parliamentary grant for the relief of the famished land.

LAWS REGULATING STORMS.

“So the loss in battles always begins to be told in numbers that occasionally would require more than the combined forces of the two armies to supply. The first reports of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing, in the early days of the Civil War, is a case in point. Had we fought on at the rate given then the country would not have had a male person in its population a year before the date of Appomattox. So that we can hope every day will reduce the number, although it cannot lessen the horror otherwise, of the visitation the death angel has made in the Lone Star State.

“It is interesting to study the law of storms which take on such a rhythmical obedience as it would seem to appear at given places and times. In this case the weather bureau was accurately alert to the approaching disturbance. Four days before its arrival on the coast its formation in the Caribbean Sea was noted and its probable course northward chartered and proclaimed as a danger to the Atlantic States. The meteorological phenomenon was correctly defined and watched in its development until on Thursday night it reached the Florida coast and struck a rude blow at Tampa. Up to this moment the weather office had made no mistake and its predictions lifted its utterance to the domain of verified prophecy.

FREAKS OF THE HURRICANE.

“Then the behavior of the storm with reference to its movements becomes almost fantastic. It was as if its controlling spirit had received a notice of the warning that had preceded it and the preparations of commerce to defend itself from its attacks. Therefore it made a feint demonstration upon the Atlantic Ocean, and suddenly turning fairly about in its course flew westward out of barometric supervision to seek a more vulnerable spot. Galveston was open to it, and sweeping across the gulf, from which no herald of warning could hasten in advance, it struck the Texas coast on Saturday and went howling with demoniac fury over the Mississippi plateau, across the lakes and down the St. Lawrence Valley out to sea again, to be chilled to death in the frigid air currents of the polar seas.

“When the West India Islands and the ports of Mexico are equipped with weather observing stations from which prompt and frequent reports shall be made, no storm can draw nigh on shores to effect a surprise. Commerce can in a measure protect itself, but ill-built cities and crops must at intervals suffer. The lesson of the last one is of warning, but how to profit by it outruns prevision that seeks absolute security. There can be no such thing, ‘for as the pestilence walketh in darkness and destruction wasteth at noon still a thousand shall fall and ten thousand at thy right hand, for the hand of man cannot stay the tempest.’ This is according to all human experience.”

To have saved and then to have lost is if anything harder to hear than to have lost at first. It was thus with Mr. William H. Irvin, who succeeded in saving his wife and all but one of his children from the death which the elements were so anxious to administer, but afterwards lost his wife, who succumbed to the injuries she received that night.

The story of Irvin and his family’s escape is like those of others who succeeded in getting out alive. It is simply marvelous, and their coming out with their lives can only be credited to that supreme power which is even mightier than the winds and sea. While he did all that any human could in saving his loved ones, yet his efforts were naught in that mighty battle of the elements.

GREAT DARING SHOWN.

In point of detail his story corresponds with the many others that are told of that night, but it is one of great daring also, one in which quick action and a trust in Divine Providence played an important part. Irvin was living with his happy family in a little story and a half cottage near the corner of Nineteenth street and Avenue O ½ before the storm, but now all of that happy home is gone, and two of that happy family are no more.

It was early in the afternoon that the water began rising out there, but it was not until later, when all chance of getting out and coming to town to a place of safety was gone, did they become frightened. The house, though small was strongly built, and it was this that caused several of the neighbors who were living in frail houses to come to the Irvin home for refuge. They were Mrs. Crowley, two sons and a daughter, and Miss Aldridge. Along in the afternoon they became thoroughly frightened by the waters, which were rapidly rising, and the wind which was increasing in velocity every minute.

And well they might, for at that time the house was beginning to groan under the fierce onslaughts of the wind and the water. They stayed downstairs until the water had creeped up into the house, coming up and up until it drove them to the stairs. Then it drove them up step by step. They were frightened, yes, but never did the dreadful picture of what did happen present itself to even their terror-stricken minds. No imagination was then able to make a picture like the one in reality.

They were thus driven up into the attic by the waters and terrorized by the wind until after dark. Then, as if to follow out the idea that whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad, the wind added to their fright and almost crazed them by carrying before it to their ears the frantic appeals for help from those who were already in the storm’s clutches and were soon to become its victims. The houses around them went, nothing being able to stand against the mighty force of the wind and waves. Then it was that their house began to creak and groan louder than ever, until at last Irvin and his fellows in distress felt that it was going the next minute, and if they did not get out then they never would.

EIGHT CHILDREN THROWN OUT OF WINDOW.

So, having no time for a second thought, he picked up one of those eight children, whose life was part of his and who made his life worth living, and with a prayer tossed him out of the window, to alight on what he did not know, if to alight on anything. But he thought, and wisely, as circumstances proved, that they would have a better chance in the open than in a falling house. He risked their falling into that turbulent sea and sinking, never to come up, to leaving them in the building to be maimed by flying timbers and killed by the falling house.

Thus he threw out all of the eight, then came his wife, then the others who had come to him for refuge. He did not know what the fate of each of the former was when he threw out another, but trusted to Divine Providence, and not in vain. For as he threw the first out a shed in the rear of the house, as if with heroic instinct, washed against the building directly under the window, and there it stayed for a few seconds, catching each member of the family as he or she fell, even waiting for him.

The rest of Irvin’s story is that of a continual fight to keep his family from being blown and washed off of the raft that Providence had given him. This fight lasted for hours and their perilous position was made even greater by the flying timbers and pieces of slate which the wind would seem to take such delight in hurling at them. It was a battle between providence and the elements to see which should claim the family for its own, and not until nearly three o’clock did the wind and water cease in their efforts to add the Irvin family to their long list of victims. The elements were recompensed by taking one of the eight children and injuring the wife so that she would later become one of their dead.

At about three o’clock the next morning Irvin found himself and family, except the little one who had been lost, several blocks from where he had formerly lived, and mixed up in the debris. At daylight he succeeded in getting his wife and children out and brought them to the business part of the town.

THE MOST REMARKABLE EXPERIENCE.

As soon as possible he sent the children to relatives in Houston. In the meantime his wife had been taken to the Sealy hospital suffering from the injuries she had received during the storm. At this time he realized that he was hurt also and went to the temporary hospital at the Custom House, where he stayed for several days under treatment. It was while he was there that the last sad chapter was added to his story. While there confined to his bed, his wife died in the Sealy hospital, and he had to lie at the Custom House without getting a last look at the woman whom he loved, while strangers were burying her body. Of his neighbors who took refuge with him all were saved except the little daughter of Mr. Crowley.

IMPRISONED BY THE STORM.
Thrilling Experience of Colonel Anderson, the Fort Point Lighthouse
Keeper and His Wife—In the Face of Death the Light Was Put Up—Isolated
for Days in the Wrecked House Without Supplies.

The government reservation of several hundred acres situated at the extreme eastern end of Galveston island met the full force of the storm of September 8th. Unprotected from any side the destructive hurricane and relentless gulf swept the historic spot and the massive concrete fortifications crumbled like so much papier mache. The substantial, double iron-braced barrack buildings and quarters were battered into kindling wood and not a stick stands to mark the place where thirteen buildings stood. Situated within the United States government reservation were the quarantine officers’ home and headquarters; the torpedo casemate, torpedo cable-tank, torpedo warehouse, engineers’ store rooms and wharf leading to the cable tank and casemate.

These structures were located on the bay shore in the northwestern corner of the immense reservation. Following the jetty as it extended eastward and curved to the south were the United States life saving station and the Fort Point light house, each about two hundred yards apart. At the northeastern point of the island are the two rapid-fire batteries pointing over the jetty and commanding the channel in the bay between the two jetties. Around on the eastern and southeastern edge of the point are the 10–inch rifle battery and the 12–inch mortar battery, about 500 yards apart. In the centre of the reservation were grouped the barrack buildings. These buildings were built about eighteen months ago and afforded accommodations for a one-battery post.

The government was raising this reservation by filling in the site about ten feet above mean low tide. The quarters had not been occupied, having been built on piling, high in the air, to allow for the filling which was being distributed in the shape of sand pumped from the bay by the government dredge boat. The detail of twelve men from battery O which cared for the batteries at Fort San Jacinto, which was the new name given to the historic “Fort Point” of early Texas days, occupied quarters in temporary structures erected in the rear of the 10–inch battery.

Before the storm Fort San Jacinto was a most inviting and attractive place. The immense reservation east of the fence, which marked the western boundary, extending across the island from bay to gulf, was a most picturesque section of the island. When the storm had finished its merciless onslaught, Fort San Jacinto and its government structures presented a picture of terrible ruin. The costly coast fortifications, which had been constructed to withstand the attacking powers of the navies of the world, were silenced and rendered helpless by the combined batteries of the wind and sea.

The life saving station, where Captain Edward Haines and nine of his brave comrades stood ready to render succor to the storm-driven wretches, was picked up with its load of boats, beach apparatus and other life saving paraphernalia and crushed like a match box. Only four or five of the long pilings mark the site of the station house. Mrs. Haines, wife of Captain Haines, and one of the crew met their death at the station when the building collapsed.

WATERS OF BAY AND GULF MEET.

The south jetty, which marked the northern and eastern boundaries of the reservation, pointed its long line of rail-capped rocks five feet above the tide before the storm. But when the northeast gale backed the waters of the bay against the stone wall and the storm swelled the bay out of its banks, the water rose above the jetty and swept like a millrace to meet the waters of the gulf, which came running in from the southeast. This was early in the afternoon, and as the hurricane increased in velocity and the gulf roared out its warning, the terrible work of destruction commenced. The reservation was inundated and the force of the mighty waters quickly dug channels beneath the fortifications.

Then the wind and gulf joined forces and the great coast defenses succumbed to the attack and were washed from their foundations and half buried in the grave dug by the waters of the gulf. The immense concrete and rock structures toppled like toy houses as the greedy waters plowed channel after channel in the quicksand upon which the batteries stood. With the wooden structures, the barracks and warehouses, the wind made quick work, and the wreckage was shot through the rapids and carried to sea.

As the waters on their reservation rose higher and higher and the fortifications sank from view the lighthouse stood alone in the high sea which made the gulf and bay one. In this structure two human souls watched the storm gods at work and waited for their time. There was no hope of escape. The steel bridge leading from the top of the jetty to the lighthouse had been twisted by the wind and carried away; the lifeboat which hung from davits beneath the house had been snatched from its position and smashed against the iron supports, and the water carried off the splintered remnants.

Night came and the lamp in the tower, as though defying the hellish work of the raging elements, cast its mellow rays of light upon the scene of devastation and death which Night had just covered with its mantle. That human hands should dare to illuminate the appalling scene of tragedy must have enraged the murderous elements, and the storm batteries were turned on the tower. For an hour or more the attack continued with increasing vengeful power, and then—the light went out. Satisfied, perhaps, that the last defender of the reservation had been silenced the warring elements abandoned their fierce attack and entered the city to finish their destruction.

With the dawning of day an aged couple, who had faced many dangers in life’s stormy sea together, came out on the gallery of the lighthouse and, standing arm in arm, viewed the funeral procession in the bay. They had survived the night, and while they stood there high above the water in silent thanksgiving for their safe deliverance, they saw the ebbing tide carrying its dead to sea. Out through the jetties the long cortege moved swiftly, with the angel of death piloting the craft of human corpses.

RISES TO A HEIGHT OF SIXTY FEET.

Fort Point lighthouse is situated two miles from the city. It is a six-sided iron structure rising above the water to a height of about sixty feet. It stands about 300 feet south of the jetty, and the water up to the time of the storm was never over two feet in depth around the house. At times it was dry, but usually only a few inches of water played around the iron screw piles, which were screwed into the sand about eighteen feet, and upon which the iron superstructure is supported. The metal framework supporting the lighthouse proper and the light tower rises about thirty-five feet from the base.

Then comes the living apartments of the keeper, Colonel C. A. Anderson, and his wife. On top is the light tower, a six-sided glass house, with iron framework. A gallery encircles the living apartments, and another the light tower. About ten feet beneath the living apartments and about twenty-five feet above the base a wooden platform served the dual purpose of basement and back yard to the isolated habitation. On this platform two large tanks furnished fresh water for the household, a shed held the wood supply and another shed was used as a storehouse for a several months’ supply of kerosene oil for the light.

From the jetty a steel bridge led to the lighthouse, and from the bridge a stairway extended to the basement and living apartments. In the rear an iron ladder leading from the gallery of the keeper’s home communicated with the “back yard” and basement, and also with the boat house and a platform extending from the rear of the structure to the bridge in front.

When the wind had subsided and the sea receded the naked metal frame supporting the house was all that was left of the lower structure. Wrapped around the iron pillars and braces were steel railroad tracks, which the wind and sea had wrenched from the jetty railroad and twisted around the lighthouse supports. The bridge had fallen an easy victim to the storm, and the water supply, wood, oil, lifeboat and stairway were torn from their fastenings and carried to sea. The jetty, with its huge rocks, weighing tons, had suffered many a breach, and a large opening was in front of the lighthouse. Through this break the waters of the gulf and bay rushed like a mill race, and a new channel connecting the bay and gulf was cut in a night. The isolation of the lighthouse was most complete.

STORM HOWLS A DEATH WARNING.

Colonel Anderson is seventy-three years of age and his wife some years his junior. No human mind can picture their experiences on that night of nights. Words are inadequate to convey an idea of the feelings of this devoted couple while the storm cried out its death warning and these two mortals prepared for the end which they were so sure was at hand. To attempt to leave the home would have been madness itself, but this thought was not for a moment entertained. The colonel would never desert his post, and his consort was happy to be near that they may both go to their death together.

Four rooms and a bath room comprised the home of the keeper, and the many friends of the family speak of the place as “Mamma Anderson’s doll house.” Not because the apartments are small, for they are comparatively good sized rooms, but because they were the cosiest and prettiest furnished rooms to be found, perhaps, on the whole island. Every nook and corner reflected the exquisite handiwork of the dear housewife who made this home an emporium of fancy needle work, embroidery, dainty laces and other rich and beautiful decorations and ornaments in which she justly took great pride.

The affectionate couple addressed each other in the endearing terms of “Mama” and “Papa,” and their home far beyond the city is truly “home, sweet home.”

Early in the afternoon of the storm Captain Haines and his brave crew from the life saving station manned the life boat and started to go to the lighthouse to bring the keeper and his wife to town. But even at that early hour no boat could live in the gale and raging sea that was threatening the destruction of the whole island. The wall of rock, called the jetty, would not permit any boat approaching within several hundred feet of the sharp-pointed line of stone extending five miles to sea. But, as Mrs. Anderson said in relating the incident to a _News_ reporter who visited the stricken home two weeks after the storm: “It was a noble act for Captain Haines to attempt to rescue us, but it would have resulted in a useless risk, because Papa would not have left the lighthouse while it stood and I would never leave without him.”

PREPARED FOR THE WORST.

Two hours after Captain Haines’ attempt, the life saving station collapsed and Mrs. Haines, the nearest neighbor of the lighthouse keeper’s family, and one of the crew were killed. As the shades of night began to fall the destruction in and about the Point was about complete, and the keeper of the light and his faithful companion withdrew to prepare themselves for the worst. From the sleeping room of Colonel Anderson a stairway, winding around a steel post, which extends from the top of the light tower through the center of the entire structure, and fastened to a screw pile in the sand bed, leads to the light tower.

Promptly at the usual hour the keeper who, for five years, has watched and cared for the light, made his way to the tower with his brass kerosene lamp, and placed it within the strong, magnifying circular lens. The linen curtains which shade the glass enclosure during the day were drawn aside and the bright light shed its rays out into the gloom, and storm-tossed vessels in port were able to get their bearings.

The water rose higher and higher and the storm waves sent their spray over the top of the tower. The hurricane increased in violence and the slate from the roof of the keeper’s home was picked off piece by piece by the wind. An hour passed, and the keeper had made frequent journeys to the tower to see that the light was burning. He went up again, but had hardly reached the landing through the small opening in the floor, when one of the large panes of thick glass on the northeast side was smashed by flying slate. The light was extinguished and a piece of glass struck the aged keeper in the head and face. The opening in the lens faced the broken window pane and it was useless to relight the lamp. Stunned by the blow, and bleeding from the wounds in his head and face, the old man made his way down the stairs where his wife waited and watched for his return. “Mama” quickly dressed the wounds, and then the aged couple went into the parlor and in silence waited for the end.

Above the howling tempest the agonizing grinding of the jetty railroad iron on the metal supports of the lighthouse struck terror to the hearts of the anxious watchers imprisoned above. The slate roof suffered severely and the rain pouring in from above added to the pitiful experience of the night.

IN DANGER OF STARVATION.

This is just the plain story of what happened on that fateful night, but the sufferings of the next few days were even greater to the keeper and his wife. There were no provisions in the house and the supply of vegetables, fuel and fresh water in the “basement” had been washed away. The water around the house even after the tide went out was over ten feet deep. The life boat had been stolen by the storm, and not even a plank to serve as a raft was to be found on the premises. Having weathered the terrible storm they were apparently left to starve to death. The shipping in the harbor had suffered and no boats were to be seen in the channel. The flag of distress hoisted on the gallery was not responded to, and no small boat could enter through the breach in the jetty; it was too dangerous. Alone and forgotten. Who thought of the lighthouse and the two mortals imprisoned there by the storm and isolated by fate?

Three days passed and the scant supply of three or four cans of soup and fruit had long since been exhausted. On the third day a voice was heard calling from below and Mrs. Anderson recognized her son, C. D. Anderson, Jr., a boy of 16 years, swimming in the water from the jetty to the lighthouse. He had for three days been trying to get to his father and mother, having been up the bay with a surveying party when the storm struck the island. Dr. Mayfield, the quarantine officer, had brought him in his boat from town.

Young Anderson was fearful of the fate of his parents and he made his way to them as soon as possible. In a small bundle which he managed to save while he swam the stream, he carried some nourishment, but he had not contemplated that he would find his mother and father suffering for food and water. The boy returned to town and notified the authorities to send food and fresh water to the water-bound keeper and his wife, but the request was not complied with. The city was weighted with sorrow and every man was burdened with grave responsibilities. No boats were running out in that direction.

Ten days wore away and the situation had become critical with the noble keeper and his wife when the Arbutus, the lighthouse tender, came into port, and passing the light house saw the signal of distress flying from the prison-home. That day a supply of food and two small casks of tainted water were delivered at the light house. It was not the food that the family was accustomed to—it was simply hard tack and salt meat, which is supplied as rations to the crews of vessels. The government does not furnish supplies to its light house keepers, and Colonel Anderson’s home always boasted of the goodies served at meal time at his own expense.

THE COLONEL A NOTED CHARACTER.

Two weeks after the storm the situation had been somewhat improved, but the fresh water supply had been exhausted and when a News reporter visited the home Colonel Anderson and his wife were praying for rain that they might catch a supply of heaven’s dew in a tub which had been placed under the spout from the roof. The light house tender Arbutus had sent a man who repaired the damaged light tower, but the aged couple were left to their own resources to get water and food. The reporter, who had been able to reach the light house through the kindness of Assistant Engineer Wilcox of the United States engineering office, brought back to town another communication asking that food and water be sent out to the light house.

Colonel C. D. Anderson is quite a noted character and is well known as a man who figured conspicuously and gallantly in the civil war, and also in public office since the war. He is a native of South Carolina, a graduate of West Point and held a commission in the United States army before the civil war. He received his appointment as second lieutenant in the Fourth artillery from Texas on June 26, 1856, was made first lieutenant July 6, 1859, and on April 1, 1861, resigned his commission and came south to join the army of the confederacy. He was appointed to a captaincy and distinguished himself and rose rapidly to the rank of Colonel and was given command of the Twenty-first Alabama infantry.

He was in command of Fort Gaines and his gallant defense of that fort won the admiration of Admiral Farragut, who returned Colonel Anderson’s sword which was delivered to the admiral at the surrender of the fort. Colonel Anderson has the sword in his possession and prides it as a gift from his friends when he came south and joined the confederate army. The blade of the sword bears the following inscription which Admiral Farragut had engraved on the weapon before its return to its owner:

“Returned to Colonel C. D. Anderson by Admiral Farragut for his gallant defense of Fort Gaines, April 8, 1864.”

The sword was carried by Colonel Anderson in the battle of Shiloh and through many other battles and historical occurrences in the long struggle between the north and the south.

After the war the colonel, who is a civil engineer of note, held several prominent positions under the government in river and harbor engineering, and finally came to Texas where he has resided for many years. He engaged in railroad construction and built many miles of Texas roads. He served two terms as city engineer of Austin and then came to Galveston. The new custom house in this city stands as a monument to the engineering skill of the aged keeper of Fort Point lighthouse, whose life history reads like a romance. Mrs. Anderson comes from a family closely associated with the history of this country, and the department of justice building in Washington was her father’s home and the house where Colonel Anderson, then a gallant young army officer, claimed her as his bride.

NAMES OF THE VICTIMS
OF THE GREAT
GALVESTON HORROR.

The Galveston Daily News printed the following list of those known to
have perished in the hurricane. The names given below make a total
of nearly 5000.

=Ackermann=, Herman, wife and daughter. =Ackerman=, Chas. =Adams=, Mrs. Mary (colored). =Adams=, Miss Katie May, daughter of H. B. Adams of Malvern, Ark. =Adams=, Bennie and Jesse. =Adams=, Mr. and Mrs. Toby (colored). =Adameit=, Mrs. Gotleib and seven children. =Adascheck=, Mrs. Powell and four children, 2810 R. =Agin=, George and child. =Aguilo=, Joe B. and three children. =Ahy=, Mrs. John and three children. =Akers=, C. B., wife and three children. =Albano=, Mrs. and two children, Tony and Mary. =Alberto=, F. L., longshoreman. =Albertson=, M., wife and daughter. =Albertson=, Emile. =Anderson=, Henry. =Albertson=, A., wife and two children. =Alexander=, Annie and Christian, children of Thomas. =Allardyce=, Mrs. R. L., and three children. =Allen=, W. T., wife, daughter and one son. =Allen=, E. B., and wife. =Allen=, Mrs. Kate. =Allen=, Mrs. Alex, and five children (colored). =Allen=, Wm., wife and three children, Fifty-eighth and Q ½. =Allen=, Mr. and Mrs. E. =Allerson=, Edward, shoemaker, Twenty-seventh and Q ½. =Allison=, S. B., wife and six children, Thirty-fifth and S ½. =Almeras=, Mrs. P., visiting Oliver Udell down the island. =Almos=, Mrs. P. =Alphonse=, John, wife and family, with one exception, Forty-fourth and S. =Alpin=, George and wife (colored). =Ammundsen=, Emil, wife and child, Lucas Terrace. =Anderson=, J. W., wife and three children. =Anderson=, L., and wife, Seventeenth and O. =Anderson=, H. E. =Anderson=, Mrs. Dora and child Louise, wife of C. J. Anderson, 901 Broadway. =Anderson=, Ella, daughter of John Anderson, between Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh on Postoffice; lost down the island. =Anderson=, Ned, wife and two children. =Anderson=, Ella, Heard’s Lane, shell road. =Anderson=, L. (shoemaker) and wife. =Anderson=, Oscar wife and child. =Anderson=, A. G., wife and children. =Anderson=, Amanda (colored.) =Anderson=, Mrs. Sam (colored.) =Anderson=, C., Anderson ways. Bay Shore. =Anderson=, Andrew, wife and two children. =Anderson=, Nick, and sons Henry and John. =Anderson=, Mrs. Carl and four children, stockyards. =Anderson=, Nels., shipbuilder, Galveston island. =Anderson=, Edward, longshoreman. =Andrew=, Mrs. A. and family. =Andrews=, Mrs. A. and three children. =Andrews=, Mrs., on the Hisser place, Bay Shore. =Andro=, Mrs. and three children. =Angily=, Mrs. P. =Anizan=, Mrs. Frank and two children, Lamarque, Tex. =Antonovich=, John and Pinkie, 3808 P ½. =Antonovich=, Eddie. =Aplin=, George and wife. =Appel=, Fritz and son. =Applin=, Mrs. Lucy and four children (colored), L and Eleventh. =Ardisson=, Mrs. J. and eight children. =Armitage=, Miss Vivian. =Armour=, Mrs. and five children. =Armstrong=, Mrs. Dora, wife of C. F., and four children. =Artisan=, John, wife and nine children, of Thirty-ninth and S ½. =Ashe=, George, Jr. =Ashley=, Mr. and Mrs. F. C. =Astheimer=, Betty, Henrietta, Philip and Frank. =Atanasso.= =Augustine=, Pasquil and wife. =Aull=, Nicholas and family of eight. =Aull=, George and family of five. =Aull=, Joseph and family of four. =Aull=, Mary, wife of Joseph Aull. =Azteana=, Captain Sylvester de.